


Drifting Free

by cartesiandaemon



Category: Falling Free - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartesiandaemon/pseuds/cartesiandaemon
Summary: Leo, Silver and the rest of the quaddies in Cay Habitat have moved beyond Orient system in the first step in their long Crossing, but ever more engineering, diplomatic and democratic problems follow them. Leo fixes many problems at once. Everyone grows into their adult selves. Slapstick with slingshotting an inhabited space station round an uninhabited planet. Features over half the quaddies ever named in Falling Free so you better appreciate it. Mentions although sadly does not depict an EPIC SPACE PIRATE BATTLE IN ZERO-G BALLET FORM.
Relationships: Leo Graf/Silver (Falling Free - Lois McMaster Bujold)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Drifting Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Greenygal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenygal/gifts).



"We made it," exclaimed Silver, and grimaced from the effects of the wormhole jump. Leo was drifting awkwardly in front of a viewscreen, and she floated up behind him. The screen was covered in reassuring green status markers. She wrapped all four of her arms round his torso, cuddling into his back, and surreptitiously reaching round with a lower-arm to steady his slight tumble against a nearby grab handle.

"Your second jump ever," muttered Leo, still distracted by the readouts.

"You can relax, at least for a few minutes," she pushed, stroking his burly arms, but the tautness underneath hadn't relax at all. "We made the jump. It's not like--"

He interrupted her by gently pulling her head over his shoulder and tilting his head for a kiss. "Don't say it."

"Say what?" she asked, when she'd finished the kiss. "How could you know what I was going to say?"

"I just do," he said.

"But really," she said, trailing an upper-finger along his hairline. "The jump drive worked again and we're out of Orient space. Claire and the contact committee worked out the theft charges about the habitat -- and ourselves. Ti is taking the new short-range courier back to pick up Emma and Siggy. The station's in good shape, and we've almost decided on a new name. The planning committee worked out some sensible places for us to head for. What could go wrong now?"

Leo sighed. "You just don't say that, Silver," he protested forlornly.

"But why?" she asked. "That doesn't make sense."

He shrugged, his shoulders rolling under the arms she had looped over them. "Old engineering tradition."

"Oh?" she asked, perking up interestedly.

"OK, so, back in old Earth..." he said, breaking obligingly into exposition.

****************************

A week later, Cay Habitat glided gracefully across the empty system on the far side of the Orient jump point, approaching a fuel-conserving slingshot around one of the uninhabitable planets orbiting the wan unnamed star at the centre of the system.

At a painstakingly calculated time, the realspace engines of the superjumper lit into life at the touch of Zara's nervous finger in the control cabin, making the latest of a series of small course corrections. The expanding network of struts and cables intertwining the superjumper with the habitat proper shuddered and tautened as they passed the thrust onto the habitat station. And inside, in his quarters, Leo nervously watched a vidscreen showing an exterior camera, digitally overlaid with the reassuring list of green status panels piped from the main engineering console.

The lights flashed three times with the impending gravity warning, and Silver drifted around the cabin, briskly patting anything prone to drifting back into place or into one of the stick pads around the kitchen area. As she finished the sweep, the cabin started to fill with microgravity, and a few items wobbled but nothing came loose.

"Are you sure you don't want to hover over Zara's shoulder for this?" she called across to Leo. "Or at least, watching the full engineering readouts?"

"It's ok," Leo said. "It's not actually the hard part of being a pilot. She managed all the previous corrections fine. This is probably the last one, and I'll be right there for all of the slingshot. And I'm waiting by the comconsole, Zara or Tony can call me instantly if there's any problem. I have to get used to trusting her to know what she's doing." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as her. But he had retreated into his quarters for this with only Silver for company so it seemed like he was succeeding at least a bit.

Silver cast around for a change of topic to take his mind off it, but her face fell as she remembered another ongoing worry. "I hope Emma's ok," she said, grasping Leo and arresting her gentle spin with a slight tap.

Dr Minchenko had discovered Emma's pregnancy had some worrying medical complications, and transferred her to the small well-equipped null-G hospital on one of Orient's orbital stations while the larger situation of Cay Habitat had been slowly working its way through the courts of law and popular opinion. But when the legal situation had cleared up suddenly and she'd still been in treatment, the Quaddies had decided in a narrow vote to keep the habitat moving. Siggy had stayed with her, and Ti had volunteered to go back to pick them up in the ageing courier ship.

"She will be," said Leo confidently. "Even in the best case, we could barely expect them yet."

"I thought you weren't supposed to say that," teased Silver, but sounding somewhat relieved.

"It's not the same," Leo replied, pulling her into him for a big hug, her small mass firm yet almost diaphanous in his encircling arms.

"We shouldn't have let Ti go" she said. "If he isn't on time, we'll end up stuck at the outgoing jump point."

Leo didn't reply immediately, and Silver's face fell again. "I'm sure he will," he said hurriedly. Silver let go of him and drifted, face to face, watching him. That meant he thought he'd been right but didn't want to say so.

"You were right to argue against it," Silver reassured him. "I hope it'll be ok, but there's was too much that could go wrong. You pushed us to acquire that short-range courier as a fallback. But we voted, and enough people wanted to leave, and no-one wanted to risk abandoning Emma, and... that's where it ended up, with no fallback and not even any jump pilot."

Leo had spoken passionately against it, and felt pride when the planning committee had not automatically deferred to his opinion, but real worry when the habitant-wide vote confirmed their proposal. "I know, Silver. I know. My engineering instincts were screaming at me that with a thousand lives on the line we needed to be sure we had a way forward. But if it had been solely up to me, I'm not sure I could have had us wait for Emma either. Or have us leave with the habitat while she couldn't safely leave the orbital clinic."

Silver looked barely mollified. "It'll be ok. One way or another," said Leo, stroking her back gently.

"That's the difficulty with votes," said Leo wryly. He'd seen problems in complete democracy, but not wanted to be the snake in the Quaddies' idealistic nascent democratic system.

"Well, hopefully Emma will come through," said Silver, projecting complete confident into her voice in a way that made them both laugh. Leo could do it when it mattered, but could never summon up that earnest sincerity on cue. Silver had learned to sound confident by diligent practice, as part of learning about downside societies, and when she got it she could just do it on cue.

At that moment, the walls lurched horribly, the whole sleeping cabin abruptly lunging at them. Silver cried out in alarm as she collided with a jutting cupboard, instinctively cushioned her sudden fall. Leo, less nimble, caught a blow to the torso, but he was used to responding promptly in an emergency and shrugged it off, pushing off from the cabinet towards the door, grabbing his hand-held comm on the way and thumbing it to auto-receive.

On the comconsole, several of the panels had gone red or orange and begun blinking urgently.

**********************

"I'm sorry!" wailed Zara, her voice echoing over the comm in Leo's helmet. He was floating in space, dangerously poorly tethered, just off from a strut which had come loose from the station. Its absence left the habitat and superjumper drifting at an awkward angle to each other, as the other reinforcing connections flexed, oscillating ominously back and forth, threatening to set off a chain of failure in the remaining connections.

Bobbi shot past with her pusher behind Leo, and he ducked reflexively as if that would make any difference. He was about to call out an automatic reminder of safety procedures, but she was already calling out "Sorry", on the emergency work gang's channel, and he saw she was heading to one of the shuttles which was yawing dangerously in its mooring, her arc calculated to use her pusher to steady it against the station.

Leo parked the frantic mental planning of the rest of the emergency reconstruction job for a second, and felt with his tongue for the inconvenient helmet controls to open a private connection to the piloting station. "Zara!" he barked, before hastily trying to modulate his voice.

"Zara," he continued sternly. "You didn't do anything wrong!" He put all the emphasis he could into that phrase. "The adjustment was just as I or Ti or anyone would have done it. The strut weld had a weakness, it would have come loose whoever was piloting. And you cut the thrust and got the superjumper torqued in sync with the habitat again, it would have been a lot worse if you hadn't."

He pulled out the big guns. "I trusted you and I was right." He didn't like relying on the Quaddie's deference to downsiders, but it kept happening anyway.

He heard a sound over Zara's breathing, and asked, "Is Silver there?"

"I'm here, Leo," she echoed. "I just got here. Patti's handling the emergency coordination inside, but there's nothing too bad. A few people in the kitchens got scalded somehow, but Dr Minchenko says they should be ok."

Then her voice shifted to address Zara. "I heard the end of that. Are you ok, Zara?"

"Yes," Zara whispered, trying to steady her voice. "It's just--. No, I'm ok."

She sounded a bit better. Wincing with apology inside, Leo cut her off. "Silver, can you stay with her? She's by far the best pilot in the habitat, we need her there. But get Jon or someone else with experience there too. Get Zara to tell them what to do. Or take the controls yourself if you have to."

He cringed at talking about Zara in front of her. But she was the best pilot, and he hoped hearing it would steady her. He trusted her to direct someone else even if she didn't want to take the controls herself.

"We'll be ok, Leo," came Silver's reassuring voice.

"OK, stand by," he announced brusquely. "You're the best, Silver. No thrust until we've cleared some of the debris, but we might need it in a hurry if any of the other supports come loose."

His attention expanded again to encompass the double work crew frantically clearing the area of floating debris and shoring up the surviving superstructure. Tony's steady voice called out suggestions, "Good job, Bobbi. Keep steadying it for now. Remember everyone, be efficient, don't hurry. We're doing this, don't take risks unless you absolutely have to. Vatel, that's good enough, push that chunk loose and then move over and clean up the small stuff in Sala's section."

Tony's level, unassuming reassurance wouldn't have worked with a lot of downsider crews who needed a firmer hand, but the peaceful Quaddies leapt to suggestions. Leo left him to it, and searched for the channel used by the smaller group Pramod had stationed around the habitat, preparing to torque it gently back into line with the superjumper. "Pramod, status?" he asked, after a moment of waiting for someone to finish speaking.

"Ah," muttered Pramod, organizing his thoughts. "We're spread out, all on integral structural elements. I think that should work. Uh, don't you, Leo?"

Leo had been encouraging the Quaddies to call him Leo, and it was spreading slowly. He surveyed Pramod's half-gang. "I think so. Wait until Tony's sure the area's clear."

He considered a moment. "Who is it on the central axis? Xel? Make sure you don't come any closer to the main plane or the torque will be wrong."

Pramod jumped in. "Yes. Thank you Xel, but can you move up about half way?" Xel clicked an acknowledgement.

"OK, you've got this," Leo assured them. "Wait for Tony's go-ahead. But chivvy him as much as you need to, don't let the habitat's drift get worse or something else'll give way before we can fix the skew. Warn Silver before you move that station, even a little. And let her know as soon as it's safe to try to use the superjumper's drive again." As soon as they could they needed to match the superjumper's trajectory to the station, weld everything down hard, and then use the engine to get the combined ark at the best angle for the slingshot. Or the fast pass around the planet would tear them apart again.

He was about to contact Agba and ask about the engineering repairs inside when Silver's voice cut in urgently again on a channel override. "Leo!" she cried. "It's Ti. You need to hear this." He heard Ti's voice on a comconsole in the background.

He made a rapid mental calculation. Given the course of the habitat, they'd come only a few light-minutes from the wormhole. So there'd be a few minutes delay. Whatever it was it was urgent but he probably had a few seconds.

"Wait!" he replied, and switched to the work gang's channel. "Tony! I need to pay attention to the radio. Get one of the apprentices to come grab me, do any manoeuvring, keep me out of the way. When you get it aligned, I'll need to do the big weld, that one's going to need some extras, get me up to the end of this strut."

He tuned out Tony's acknowledgement and switched back to Silver, telling her to replay the vidcall, while activating the awkward fold-down rarely-used mini-screen in his helmet. Meanwhile, Tony got one of the younger Quaddies to leave off minor repairs and jet over to him, and started calling up the next work gang to come out as soon as they were suited.

******************

"Silver! Leo!" Ti's recording was saying. "Uh, Ti to Cay Habitat. I've got Siggy and Emma OK. But we've got a problem."

Then an unknown woman in an Orient-space uniform drifted across the cabin behind Ti's acceleration couch, and anchored herself awkwardly to it with one hand.

"Mr Gulik! You have lost control of this vessel. It is imperative that you return us safely to the Orient orbital station immediately."

"We've got an unwanted passenger," explained Ti diffidently. "Oh, and I've lost control of the courier ship," he added shyly.

"Ti!" howled Emma from off-screen. "Stop fucking about."

"It's ok," Ti belatedly reassured his vidscreen. "The jump, uh, we had some problems." He twisted in his chair to address the woman behind him. "You never interfere with a pilot making a jump. Never! We would have all died." His voice cracked, like he was trying to explain how serious it was, but his words were washing over the woman without effect. He switched back to the vidscreen. "We're safe, but the realspace drive got, uh, rather banged up. I think I can fix it, but I'm not really an engineer and... can you give us some advice?"

The uniformed woman behind him pulled her head downward to speak into the vidscreen. "Leo Silver? Or anyone on the rogue space station. These individuals behind me, Emma, uh, R16, and Siggy BL8 fled the Orient orbital station in defiance of an order to hold pending the resolution--"

Her voice was drowned out by overlapping howling from Emma and Siggy "It WAS resolved!" "It went to the high court. It was televised live system-wide." "That's when everyone left." "And I left as soon as it was safe." "That was the whole point."

The woman rapidly re-gathered her dignity. "As a designated legal and civil officer of Orient orbital stations and surrounding satellites, I need to clarify to you, again, that whatever the circumstances, you did not wait until the order was lifted before leaving the system, which is a crime itself, and you, Ti, aided them, and kidnapped me, and when I arrested you, also declined to return to Orient prime jurisdiction to complete the necessary legal proceedings."

"I told you to leave the ship before we left, but you wouldn't! And then you tried to kill us!" shouted Ti.

"I attempted to prevent you committing the further crime of leaving Orient system while subject to an order of appearance. Preventing crime is the main part of my job, you know. It's not my fault you continued to activate the jump drive anyway."

Leo turned out the outraged bickering for a moment. Tony and Pramod had the clean-up well in hand, and a young Quaddie he didn't know had grasped him from behind almost without him consciously noticing, unhooked his tether, and was cautiously jetting them across space towards a more secure attachment point at which the loose strut would hopefully come to rest when the habitat and superjumper were fully aligned once more.

A couple of apprentices from the new work gang, shepherded by an older Quaddie, were bringing a good selection of the heavy vacuum-rated welding equipment across towards them.

He had some time before the difficult weld. Leo wrenched his thoughts back from the unfolding situation with the habitat to the vidcall from the courier ship. Ti and the woman exchanged a few more insults before Ti cut the call off, with a promise to call back with a full description of the drive problem.

"Did you see that?" Silver reappeared, in a view of the piloting station. Zara had been replaced at the controls by Jon, but Zara was working efficiently on an adjacent console, feeding him a course.

Leo groaned low. "There's always one thing, isn't there?"

"More, if you count the revolution the 13 year olds started when Aba and Jak tried to evacuate them," Silver added, and Leo groaned again.

"It's under control. Claire shouted at them all. They listen to her." Claire was officially just one member of the planning and contact committees, but Leo thought Claire shouting at people was one of the best democratic systems they'd tried yet, and hoped it only became formalized.

This time Leo sighed. "Can you message Ti?"

"Yes, of course," Silver replied instantly, but there was a fraction of hesitation in her tone.

"You have as much authority as me," he began prefacing his suggestion, but in her face Leo saw this was a time when she wasn't sure how to handle the situation, and she'd appreciate more specific advice. "Find an engineer who's not outside. Maybe Claire if she has time, she was really skilled before she switched to inside work. Or Pela. Get them to talk through Ty's situation with the drive. If they're not sure or it gets more urgent, call me again.

"That officer... it's really a decision for a committee, but I'd have Siggy and Ti grab her. She seems to be a danger to everyone as long as she's drifting free, and not as experienced with freefall as she should be. No, wait. Message her. Ask her if the hardware at the Orient orbital stations are managed by GalacTech. Ask her if a senior manager was acting oddly before she was sent out to apprehend Emma and Siggy. Remind her that GalacTech has vehement policies against interfering in local politics, and when people get caught at it, the company tries to claim a local official went rogue and disclaim any authorization. Ask her if she's willing to stand by this escapade if her boss denounces her, or not.

"If she doesn't rethink at that, get them to grab her."

********

The habitat and superjumper wobbled worryingly, but sat in alignment where Zara and Jon had carefully nudged them back into position. The work gangs cautiously let go of the perches they'd anchored to through the manoeuvre, darting out to make temporary repairs to any non-critical components which had come close.

Tony had joined Leo at the central strut, and his team had webbed it with temporary attachments, holding it back in critical position, while Leo surveyed the damage, rehearsing the main weld in his mind.

"Pramod," he announced over the radio. "Reinforce the other struts as well. Tony and I will take care of this one. Add some reinforcement anywhere the linkages are taut. Don't worry if it's overkill for once, we don't have long until the slingshot and it has to hold. We'll have plenty of time to rebalance the joints later." Leo recognized the irony of his words from a safety engineer, but it was true. They needed safety urgently. Long term reliability could wait for once.

"Tony," he continued. "Bring the big welder here, and all the fuel. Two more, yes, Bobbi and Tapt, use your pushers, hold it in so it's welded under a little compression, it'll only make tension during manoeuvres less."

But as he grabbed the welder, his comm lit up with notifications again. He ruthlessly silenced them and turned to the centre of the weld -- however urgent they were, he trusted Silver or someone could handle the situation as well as he could for another minute. Tony was double checking that everyone, including him, had as much extra shielding as possible while he turned the welder up to max. He activated it and it shuddered into life, heat and sparks flying across space as the seam between the metal started glowing with heat.

He laid it on as thick as he could, and kept the new seam laser-straight. Tony or Pramod could have done it. But did he trust them to get it right first time? Without being able to stop and re-measure when they were uncertain?

When he'd done half way along the length, he shut off the welder and the weld site began to clear a little. That was as much as he could do before checking it.

As soon as the welder stopped, Pramod sounded urgently throughout his helmet. "Leo! Have you finished? The superjumper's arm, it's twisting. We need the pilots to adjust it again."

Leo's mind span into rapid calculation. They were running short on time, they wouldn't be able to get the strut back before the slingshot if it came loose again. But breaking the superjumper arm would be at least as bad.

He opened a channel including the pilots and the outside work gangs. "Zara! Jon! Can you try to re-align the superjumper? To take the pressure off the lower arm, without putting any pressure on this strut. But not yet. Just start the drive as gently as you can, try to ease the pressure and stop it getting worse while we finish the weld. Silver, alert people inside."

If either broke now they'd be no worse off, and the sooner they knew if one was going to break loose the sooner they could abandon trying to fix the extra superstructure, and switch to shoring up the habitat. And planning to re-moor the superjumper from its new trajectory if it broke away during the slingshot.

"Tony, take a few people, try to put some temporary bindings on this strut until we're done, anything to try to hold the weld in place. If it flexes now, it'll probably break. Pramod, get everyone else stationed on the habitat. Use the small pushers, try to make fine adjustments to its attitude as the superjumper moves. Pretend you're attitude jets trying to keep it in formation with the superjumper."

"But with less stress on that lower arm, and none on this strut," he added.

Tony and Pramod muttered acknowledgements and urged their teams into brisk action, the four-armed space-suits scattering across the space around the habitat, apart from half a dozen who swarmed across the loose strut, dragging temporary equipment with them.

He glanced at the superjumper arm. Was it...? Yes, already the worrying twist had slacked slightly. Jon had acted promptly under Zara's direction. Another status light inside his helmet showed a mid-priority emergency broadcast, hopefully a low gravity warning to those inside. Well done, Silver and Patti.

"Cool quickly," he muttered impatiently to the weld. He pushed back from the strut, drifting a little way away from where it made the station, putting a little extra distance between himself and the hot weld to reduce the risk of accidents. He'd resume the difficult seam as soon as he could, but he needed to check it was straight before he did more, and wait for the habitat to stop shifting.

Meanwhile he tongued the first of the emergency alerts. It was Emma, audio only, whispering an urgent summary.

"Silver! Leo! Someone! Ti did what you said, it was great. She bought it all, went off in a great rant against her boss and the GalactTech manager at Orient Orbital. But she went berserk, trying to take over the ship. Ti and Siggy grabbed her but she had some kind of modified stunner and got them both. I screamed that I was pregnant and she forced me into the equipment closet instead. But I'm scared. The spare radio's in here and I patched it ito the main system. I think the ship's still tumbling." She took a heavy breath. "What can I do?"

Leo admired the efficiency of her status report but was running short of ideas. He sent a brief audio message to Silver, "Did you see that? I don't know, can you think of anything?" and quickly cycled onto activating the next alert.

"Warning, microgravity," came Patti's pre-recorded voice. He silenced the rest of that one.

Next came Silver's voice again, on a lower priority. "Leo! I know you're welding, but one of the 13 year olds ran off into the lower engineering bay, the one we shut down, and is still playing hide and seek with the rescue team. Is there anything there still likely to be dangerous? Claire and Iris didn't think so, and I'd ask Tony or Pramod, but..." But they were out here with him.

He didn't try to open a live connection to Silver but squirted her a brief reply. "Everything should be shut down. It'll be hard for them to hurt themselves unless they're really reckless. But it might not all be secured for thrust. Look for anything that's come loose, that's the risk."

Poor kids, trying to model themselves on adults who lived in space-station safety-conscious conformity all their lives -- but adults who celebrated as their largest achievement an unprecedented rebellion. They went uncooperative at the most surprising times.

Leo glanced at the weld. So far it was holding. Tony's emergency attachments couldn't hold under even a small thrust, but seemed to be coping successfully with Zara and Jon's delicate micro-thrust. The station's attitude was looking healthier too.

He balanced another trade off carefully and opened a channel to Tony and Pramod alone. "Tony," he called, and waited until one of the baggy white suits clinging to the strut shifted its stance to look back toward him, and Tony sounded an acknowledgement. "Tony. I've done the hardest bit. Can you finish the weld while I deal with another crisis?"

There was a moment of silence while Tony considered. "Are you sure, Leo?" he asked. But his voice sounded confident.

"Yes, I'm sure," Leo replied immediately. "Talk me through it."

Tony reeled off a good description of the steps for the best way to make a difficult but hurried weld and have it hold the first time, finishing with, "And however hurried I am, I'll check the angle twice before I start,"

"Good," acknowledged Leo. "Start as soon you can. Get the apprentice -- what's her name? -- to tow me out of the way again if you need."

"Pramod?" he continued. Pramod muttered an acknowledgement. "Did you hear all that?"

Pramod sounded distracted managing his team, but he managed a terse "Yes."

"OK, thank you," Leo added. "Just keep doing what you're doing. Keep coordinating with Zara. Let Tony know as soon as you think it's safe to continue the weld."

He quickly scanned the rest of his urgent messages and alerts, but they didn't cover anything new. As soon as he could he opened the awkward in-helmet vidscreen again and opened a new channel to Silver.

"Did anyone reply to Emma yet?" he asked immediately.

"I told her to stay quiet in the closet and we were thinking about it," said Silver. "I mean, that Orient downsider probably can't fix the drive herself either, and she can't take the ship through the jump point again without Ti piloting whatever happens. She'll have to get help from us somehow."

"I know. But, she's not acting rationally. She might do something else stupid that damages the ship." Leo almost bit his tongue as he saw Silver's face contort in greater worry. He thought he even heard Jon or Zara say something in the background. Quaddies always worried about downsiders being reckless with safety, Silver already knew that better than he did.

"Is there anything likely to be in that closet that would help?" asked Silver methodically.

Leo considered. "It's between the airlock and the pilot station. If she can get a panel off she could access almost anything. But I'm not sure what would help. She could cut the oxygen, but the downsider would have plenty of time to screw up before she fell unconscious, and no guarantee who'd last longer. And... the baby."

They silently considered alternatives, when another message from the courier ship came in and Silver patched it into their joint channel.

The video showed Emma floating exuberantly in the middle of the cabin, almost manic with excitement. Behind her, a ball of groggy downsider was thrashing vaguely, tightly wrapped into a tangled sphere by thick black cargo webbing. The woman groaned vaguely and Emma reached behind her with her nearest hand and with a deft twist sent the maundering security officer into a rapid in-place spin.

"Ti came to and tackled her again!" she called excitedly. "I got the stunner! I think we're ok, but can someone please help us fix the drive?"

"Oh god, I'm so relieved," Leo sagged. "The drive shouldn't be a problem, Pela can talk one of you through it." He glanced around the space outside the habitat bustling with industrious work-gangs, Tony drifting in to unfinished weld wielding the largest welder with authority. "Everything seems under control here too. I'm just going to float here and panic for a bit, now that I have the time for it. I told you all you could handle everything."

"Oh Leo," breathed Silver affectionately. And then added playfully, "You know, they're going to name this whole station after you in the end however long you put them off."

***********

Bruce van Atta was fired from GalacTech for a vast multiple of reasons. He founded a quick succession of companies that all went bust, and eventually fled from his collapsing financial responsibilities. He end up embroiled in a get-rich-quick scheme in the ex-hijacker-lair of Jackson's Whole and coming under the sway of a gang lord known as 'Fell'. Ultimately he was knifed in a ramshackle transient bar in an argument over whether a piece of shit like him should be allowed to continue to stain the reputation of humanity.

************

Fifty years hence, an informal dance troupe were attempting to evoke the majesty of Quaddies' exodus.

"The Crossing," mused Aljean. "Do I need a more momentous name?"

"It's fine for now. We have to finish it before worrying too much about the name!" laughed Bobbi Two, floating in a grey jumpsuit covered in silver stripes at the edge of the converted cargo hold they were using as an auditorium.

"C'mon" groused the burly Pramod Nine, applying some extra ducting tape to a long pole bisecting the rehearsal space. "We're all donating our discretionary time to this. The directors won't recommend that dance deserves a permanent allocation unless we make something of it."

"Oh, very well then. Action!" shouted Aljean, manoeuvring a small hand-held camera into position and backing up out of the way. "Well, go on then. I said action. Go!"

The Quaddies all threw themselves across the rehearsal space to coalesce in a big ball near the hatch, and rapidly sorted themselves out into a living representation of a space habitat, grey-clad bodies curled into balls forming a ring of habitable modules, clasped hands and taut arms with stripes of silver along representing the links between them, Bobbi Two in the centre of the ring, arms reaching up and down, representing the original axis of the station, held in place by one arm from each other dancer linked round her waist.

With a shout of "Ready, Aljean?" from Pramod, the structure launched itself spinning stately across space. Aljean panned with the camera, following it's trajectory, zooming in to create a sensation of speed as the Quaddies drifted past.

As the formation of Quaddies passed the pole across the auditorium, hands in minimizing space-black sleeves reached out to grasp the red-and-grey uninhabitable-planet coloured handhold, and the troupe pivoted dramatically round it to swing off in a new direction, representing an ancient slingshot manoeuvre.

As the Quaddies approached the wall at the back of the auditorium, another Quaddie propelled herself into the air in the centre from an unassuming perch near the back. The rest of the Quaddies broke apart, cushioning their landing and spacing themselves along the wall to watch the sequel of their piece.

The new Quaddie had wrapped a grey jumpsuit around her body, with only her arms protruding, clad in four stylized hand-puppets: Puppet Ti, puppet Emma, puppet Siggy, and puppet Officer. Puppets Ti and Officer were engaged in a vigorous argument, while the other two kept trying to pull them apart.

The dumb show played out for a minute until the new Quaddie's trajectory converged on the rest and was brought gently into berth at the wall by a dozen welcoming arms. As soon as the puppets stopped acting, the Quaddies burst into applause of every configuration.

Aljean stilled the camera and immediately pushed across the space to join them.

The new Quaddie popped a head with an elegant, elderly face out of her costume and Silver One, as people had taken to calling her, immediately asked Aljean with a smile, "How did we all look?"

"Oh, it was perfect," gushed Aljean. The other quaddies made noises of enthusiastic agreement. "The slingshot around the pole was glorious. And your puppets were great. Emphasizing the humorous part of the conflict complements the risks of the habitat so well. I want to keep them in if I can."

"It was nerve racking when we did it for real," Silver assured them. "We didn't know if the whole habitat would come apart. Or if something terrible was going to happen to Emma and everyone. But it worked out. Please have pilot Zara in this scene if you possibly can, though, it was her first triumph."

"She does a lot later though," cautioned Aljean. "We'll always need to streamline some roles we want to keep." He grimaced apologetically as he contradicted the Quaddie elder, but Silver just smiled magnanimously.

"And you're going to have some more traditional dance in this as well, aren't you?" asked Zara's younger namesake nervously.

"Oh yes," reassured Aljean. "Most of it, I think. But I wanted to try out one of the big set pieces I was thinking of first, the ones without much precedent in downsider opera, to see if we actually wanted to include them. I want the Crossing to be epic all the way through."

Silver smiled. "I hear you'll have a love duet between me and Leo," she teased Aljean.

Aljean blushed. "It's ok," Silver reassured the troupe. "No-one on Graf Station would let you leave that out. I was very young then, but it's a marvellous story."

"Do you, uh...?" Aljean trailed off.

"Thank you, but no, I won't try to dance out the story of my young love. I will happily let someone else try to. In fact, I will leave you to try some of the duets without me, and go and write a glowing report to the directors on the cultural contributions the ballet seems to be making." She drifted towards the door. "I might be back later, if you're ready to rehearse the passage of earth, and the false harbour scenes. And the pirate battle aria."

Silver pushed off from a helpful Pramod and drifted back to the main hatch. Aljean threw all four arms wide in a gesture of encouraging excitement. "OK, let's get rehearsing! Who wants to try dancing as a young Director Silver? Who wants to try dancing with them as a downsider?"


End file.
